Around Town

Everyone knows that Google is well on its way to ruling the world, so why not try for the rest of the solar system? On Tuesday, the search engine company (doesn’t that sound too pedestrian now? Google needs a new description like “benevolent netocracy” or perhaps, “religion”) announced “Virgle,” a new venture to colonize Mars.

There’s so much to love about the “Adventure of Many Lifetimes,” a truly meticulous fabrication. The invitation is so grand –  “Earth has issues, and it’s time humanity got started on a Plan B. So, starting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars.”

And at the Virgle Web site you can check out a 100-year plan, learn what it means to be a Virgle Pioneer and take a test to determine your worthiness.  I took the test — and I really want to meet the person who wrote it because they can probably make rocks laugh — and here was the result.

Well, you’re distressingly normal and could conceivably adjust to life as a deep space pioneer, though we recommend instead that you leave the Mars missions to the serious whack jobs who scored over 130 and instead finish year 3 of law school, tuck your toddler into bed, design Web 2.0 applications, run for Congress or do whatever other normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road thing you’re currently doing with your normal, healthy, middle-of-the-road life .

So it doesn’t look like Mars is in the cards for me. But the rest of you should try.

And I’m guessing the second-place win in what must have been an awesome “Design an April Fool’s Day Prank” contest at Google was Gmail Custom Time, which lets you back date emails up to four years.  Check it out. Hilarity will ensue.